Hello,

I am currently running a fully updated Manjaro MATE system and everything works great.

One thing that has eluded me is an image management software that's in many ways like Shotwell, but for managing a much more diverse collections of images, not just photos I've taken.

For example, I have GIFs, clipart, my own SVG files, diagrams (in an image format like PNG), icons, GIMP XCF files, scanned drawings, and the list goes on.

Managing them using only folders is becoming way too unwieldy. Frankly it's a nightmare since I've got 1000s of images!

Is there software that can let me manage all of the above, maybe using a combination of tags, metadata, and folders, or something even better? An ability to call external programs (like Inkscape or GIMP) for non-destructive editing (i.e. save a new version of the image) would be great, plus managing their metadata. And a huge wish of mine is that the entire library can be synced across my Linux machines via my ownCloud instance.

Is this too ambitious? Should I just try to do this in software like Shotwell? Please let me know your suggestions on how to do this cleanly and efficiently, even if they don't fulfill 100% of my wants... Thank you very much!!

If you haven't already give GIMP a try. You can manipulate all kinds of images and text as well in GIMP.
You'll have to take the time to get to know the program.
https://www.gimp.org/docs/
https://docs.gimp.org/2.8/en/

I've created multiple works of Art and Edited them in GIMP and it's worked great for me.
GIMP can manipulate your clipart as GIMP can handle png, jpeg, xcf, xcf.gz, xcf.bz2 and etc.....
GIMP's default is .xcf.

Scanned drawlings worked well for me in GIMP but I had to export it and change the extention of the file from png to jpeg to see it properly on the pc monitor.

Blender is even more advanced that GIMP. Great for 3D images and the results are great once you know the program.
https://www.blender.org/
https://www.blender.org/support/tutorials/


I bet that is a nightmare; that would drive me nuts.
GIMP and Blender both save and keep all of your work in the program itself so you won't have that problem.

The only experience I've had with Shotwell is with my Kodak digital camera and manupulating the pics on the camera so I'm not entirely sure if Shotwell will give you the results your looking for.

Good luck-

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Thanks for the reply. I have used both GIMP and Blender.
What do you mean GIMP and Blender both save and keep all your work in the program itself?

In any case, sorry I might not have been clear, but my original question was referring to managing my huge library of all sorts of image files, *not* how to edit them. That's why I brought up Shotwell, since it manages it collection of photos (the problem is that it only manages photos and is geared towards them). In fact it is capable of calling external programs like GIMP to do editing. The point is that I'm looking for software that manages the files of those images (not just photos) and organise them on my system. Does such a thing exist?

Gimp is in deed an editor.
To manage your collections, diverse programs are available. They all have their strong points and weaknesses. Usually, each distribution comes with one of those applications installed in the group graphics/image-manipulation or similar. But the program automatically installed is often times very simplistic. Not knowing what you have, I recommend to look for the following programs in the resources which are configured for your package-manager:

• GThumb
• F-Spot (photo)
• Irfanview (works fine in the wine-emulator)

When I had myself to sort out a few photos from a vast collection, I was missing some functionality in all of these programs and sometimes found them overcharged with stuff that I had no use for. I have thus programmed my own "image-manager". But as I cannot know how you plan you use the software, do not want to recommend this tool. It is basically a slide-show program which allows scaling, rotation and the like on the currently displayed image, as well as some file-manipulations. It is probably not comparable to any of the other programs, I wrote about.

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The gimp and mirage is what I normally use. But probably not the management that you're after. Some of the newer file managers have thumbnails and mouse over for meta data. Depends on what you call management. File names and locations? Or meta data management in one huge directory of cruft.

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Fotoxx maybe, I was looking for a simple editor for my wife, found Fotoxx wants to manage the collection.

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Thanks for all the suggestions!!

I've tried a few of the photo managers like Shotwell, Fotoxx, and F-spot. And it's nice that they have a bit of built in editing functionality.

However, the problem is that they are all focused on managing only *photos*. As I said earlier, my collection of images is much more than just photos: they include SVGs, GIFs, XCFs, drawings and diagrams saved in PNG or JPG formats, etc. A nice thing about photo managers (like F-spot) is that they handle the file management behind the scenes, while allowing me to organise my photos via metadata, tags, time, albums, and other organisational units. But again those software are built specifically for only photos.

Is the suggestion that I might as well use those photo-only managers for my other images, too? Can they handle that? Thanks!

I do not want to install GThumb to verify, but if I remember correctly, it had supported a bunch of image formats.

Anyway, it is difficult to find a program that equals Irfanview in all its options and possibilities. Would I have to tread SVG, WMF, PCX, XPM, JPEG and JPEG2000 alike, I would concentrate on running Irfanview with the wine-emulator. Screen Shot.

Update: Could the OP please describe in more detail, what “managing image libraries” means for him? It may be possible to combine a few linux-tools and use scripting to do the work and not having to install a “certain” program.
I looked up Irfanview in the thread What would you like to see ported to linux and someone compared Irfanview to ImageMagic.
That is courageous, but however, maybe a hint.

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Not what you asked, but I keep my collection organized in a different way. I run HTTP server in my router (webfs - lightweight web server for static content). I use a PERL script (imageindex) to generate albums in directories, sorted by year, theme, occasion, whatnot. Then I wrote an HTML front page with links to all my albums. I've added links to my videos, so on. Thay all play/display in a web browser, locally and remotely for our friends.

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The closest thing that I know of is Shotwell and GIMP for photos.

What specifically do you want this software that your looking for to do with the files (that are not images) you have aside from keeping it organized?

The programs keep a copy of your work within the program it's self. You can find a list by opening the main file in the program to locate all of your work.

-::-Other Alternatives-::-
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-photo...can-run-linux/
http://alternativeto.net/software/gimp/?platform=linux
http://lifehacker.com/5877908/the-be...-app-for-linux
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-lin...editing-snaps/

You could always save your work, files, and images to an external HDD or the Cloud if your pc is getting that full.
I keep all of my paintings, sketching and calligraphy work that I create on my Android Tablet.

1 members found this post helpful.

Digikam is probably the most full featured program available for photo management. You will still run into limitations for filetypes like svg and pdf though.

One option to consider might be the tagging and organization built into Dolphin/Nepomuk (now called Baloo) but it would probably require switching your desktop environment from MATE to KDE. I believe Digikam is also integrated into Nepomuk/Baloo.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks again for everyone's enthusiastic responses.

I think I'm definitely looking for more of a file management solution than a photo-specific one.

I have ample storage space, but the problem is with the *organisation* of my files and easily keeping track of what I have and how to find them (most of which are images in various formats). For example, I was just making some slides for a presentation, and I know there is a specific image out of my collection that I want to use. But it is really hard to find out of the thousands that I have. Again, many of them are *not* photographs, and a rigid folder structure is no longer sufficient for me to keep everything organised...

So, you would be happy with a software that allows to “class” picture files, to “tag” or to otherwise “group” them, based on some ad hoc criteria, preferably in a way that allows these “groups” to overlap and without physically moving, copying or linking the files.

I feel tempted to ... nah! Just install gThumb ( <--- note, how I finally gave in) (... and installed gThumb myself just to show you):

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It is a shame Linux doesn't have what you are looking for, but I believe you can get something like that going the other way; get a sophisticated file manager and add support for tags, and plug-ins for using tags to it.

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I'm sorry to make you install gThumb!!! I've always thought it is simply an image viewer. The screenshot is actually very informative, I've just installed it myself and will explore how it may help me keep everything organised. If this works out, I wonder if there's a way to keep the catalogs, tags, etc. *synchronised* across different machines???

Thank you Michael for your help.